Finance

I’ve got 5 contracts of Cree (100 shares each), at about a value of 60, expiry Jan 2011. Currently waffling on placing a covered call for July, at 65 or 70.

If 65, option will almost certainly divest (if not, then whoppee I can lease it out again at no loss), total gain $1750 instantly, and an additional approx $2500 if its above 65 on the third Friday in July.

Or, do I go for a strike price of 70? Total gain $850 instantly, which is less of course. Also, lesser chance of it hitting 70, which means I could then lease it again in July, meaning more potential future profit. But if it does hit 70 (CREE’s gains are often swift, so it’s pretty much a coin toss), there’s an additional $5000 payout.

Hmmm, will have to do some thinking…

UPDATE: A few hours later, and the above numbers shuffled a little, I’m rolling with the 70 strike price for July.

Praxis: Back in the saddle on writing: Did two pages of translation last night, it felt plain good.

Gaming/Japanese Translation: Shinobigami: Wow, whatta game. I’m only about 20% understanding how it works based on the replays and rules text (for me it’s got a high time vs return rate than other recent books, still it’s not that long so its just a matter of time). I like how fights end the first time anyone takes damage. I also like the

Gaming: Owl Hoot Trail: The simplicity of the classes (hearkening back to Red Box Hack) and system, plus the anachronism of the setting, kept things really interesting. I loved diving into character without keeping track of Angst points and Innuendo Scenes.

Gaming: PS3: Just Cause 2 and Resonance of Fate are on their way from Amazon now. Not a lot of time to dedicate to either right now (they’ll mostly keep me busy during summer downtimes). But after playing the JC2 demo about 20 times, I figured it’s prudent to get the real deal.

Fitness: Wow. So not in shape, and not even due to all that gaming stuff above: Mostly poor meal choices at work and being sick/lethargic. Spring is now kicking my butt, though, so I’ve been doing more. Just need to do more MORE.

Stocks/Options/Other: So a bit ago I talked briefly about the option types I was playing around with: Namely diagonal spreads (avg goal: 10% gain/month) and riskier vertical spreads (avg goal: 20% gain/month, with spikes up to 35%). I forgot to mention that I fell in with the new wonky-trade branch of Scottrade, “Options First” (options.scottrade.com). What’s cool about this site is that like some other sites, you can create an account, put no “real” money in it (or associate it with any real money accounts), and simply practice your trades with “play money” for some time to become familiar with the system. I started last month with $10,000 in “play money”, and now have $11,500. %15 in one month, pretty nice! (this was from a one year/two month diagonal against APOL, and a two-month vertical against CREE) These are slightly riskier than owning stock and putting options against it, or making put/call orders when real stock is on the line, which basically means “I need to check my account for about 1-2 minutes every day or two”.

But otherwise, I’m liking what I see here. Unless the market totally crashes and we star buying up shotgun shells and dog food, I figure that I can maintain a zero-tau against my mortgage, house utilities and food with a starting pool of $20k… just need to get to that level first.

Orie: Kicking ass and taking names at CCCC. She’s near the top of her class at one of the hardest veterinary tech programs in the country, and she doesn’t even speak English as her first language. CCCC is a kind of mixed bag: They want to be taken seriously, but they try too hard. A lot of the professors just plain suck at teaching, handing out “busywork” as assignments. Still, Orie’s mauling the program like a wild animal.

Interesting story: So, while she’s kicking ass, she’s putting a lot of extra effort in due to the language issue. When she was in the registrar’s office, she mentioned to the admissions advisor something like that, like “Sometimes it’s really hard though: I bet I’m the first international student you’ve ever had here in your vet tech program.” The registrar/admissions advisor said, “Oh, no, not at all! We’ve actually had three international students go through the program, yessiree! Two of them were from England, and one was from Australia…”

Exercise: Haven’t been to the gym but once in the last week. Need to change that. When I go to the gym, I’m motivated to do more, make more gains, eat less bullshit, keep on the game. Got caught up in a cycle at work where I was tired, so I didn’t go to the gym, so I ate crap, and became tired, so I didn’t go to the gym… Going again tonight. Even a few minutes makes a huge difference.

BIG-XX this Fall: Looking forward to it. I didn’t go to my high school(s) reunions, college reunions, but damn I won’t miss my social group’s reunion. I hear the campus has changed a lot, will have to see that with my own head-orbs…

Spring is Here: I can tell because I have a sore throat and my nose won’t stop running.

Investing: The next game is getting an account at options.scottrade.com, and start applying what I’ve been learning about Diagonal and Vertical Spreads. Low-risk calls making 10-25% a month? (30% if I’m more aggressive, risky?) Yes, please. I turned $2500 into $10,000+ last year as a hobby/messing around, I wonder what I can do this year starting with that 10k… Only problem is that these take more research and control than regular options trades, so I have to be that much more careful.

Gaming: Been a slow month. Haven’t done actual role-playing games in a few weeks, as my main group has been between campaigns, playing Rock Band, boardgames and the like. Tomorrow we start up with Mouseguard, and will go from there…

Robot Unicorn Attack is far more fun that it should be at a glance. Very addictive. Also, Erasure. Woah.

* It snowed a ton last night (comparatively for this area). Kids are sledding in the street. Since it’s been like 4 years, I put on my Wisconsin-purchased snow boots and hiked 4 miles round-trip to the coffee house to sit and read for a bit. Tipped big. It was a great feeling, the sliding, crunching snow and the peaceful silence. The stinging cold was a nice reminder that I’m alive. I miss this northern ceremony every once in a while. But I don’t miss midwest weather.

* I’m slapping my forehead for a finance dumbshit move: I forgot to write down/notify myself of when the quarterly earnings reports go announced. So I missed the wave (and it was a pretty big wave this quarter) where all the stocks go up about 5% in a few days as financial analysts buy in to stocks they know are doing well, and then the mass sell-off which drops the stock 5-10% right as the earnings reports are read off, as the analysts get out and the average joes buy in. Missed out on an opportunity to reign in a free $1200 or so for zero effort. Oh well. I’ll just wait a week or so and watch the stocks go back up and be more way next quarter.

* I got pretty far in Popolocrois II. It’s a wonderful gem of a PSX game, a true “honobono”/”feelgood” experience. The battle system is about as complicated as… uh… ok, metaphor failure: It’s not very complicated at all, and that’s refreshing. Cute art, wonderfully light plot and heartwarming story line up into an unparalleled experience. I’d love to see more of this kind of game, but it’s hard to sell a low-graphics RPG in the PS3 world of “Killer Graphics and Multi-Million Dollar Budget or GTFO”.

* My birthday is tomorrow. I turn 35. Huh. At least this year I’ll remember how old I am. Incidentally, I found out that I share the same birthday (and year) as a Japanese porn star. I should send her a card.
Oh hey, Justin Timberlake’s B-Day is tomorrow, too!

* Week one of my vacation is nearing a close, and I feel rested. Mats W from work was right: Us Americans have no fucking clue how to *take a break from work*. While I don’t necessarily believe we need the same ample vacation time as our European counterparts, it really does take 2 weeks to wind down and really relax from work: It takes one week to relax, and the second week to “have your vacation”.

* Finished a few books. Currently reading Greg Egan’s latest anthology, Crystal Nights. Man, he may be my favorite SF author and probably the greatest SF author of our generation (BAR NONE. SERIOUSLY), but he really has a hard on against Buddhism. This is like the fourth time I read a thinly veiled anti-B screed in his works. Then again, I’ve met really pretentious practitioners that would have made me vomit screeds as well.

* I finally beat the boss on Final Fantasy XIII after about 12 tries. Whomever says this game is easier than previous titles is simply a liar who has never played it. You play three bosses in a row, and while the first is long and mildly difficult, and the third a breeze with a good strategy, the second one is a boiling pit of YOU LOSE. The boss employs a lot of cheap maneuvers that result in one-hit kills. More on that later. The end movie was pretty, but made about as much sense as any other Japanese cinematic experience.

* While the movie PANDORUM never promised to be that great, I still feel that they had a great premise killed by the need to pander to a dumb audience. It could have been much sharper. And a lot of the editing and cuts make it really look rough at times. I love the fact that they had a Vietnamese guy who spoke no English and didn’t “suddenly learn it” or whatever as well as No Subtitles for him (not even in the Subtitle options!), that was ballsy (he’s a badass K-1 fighter in real life, too). The movie also employed not one, but TWO twists at the end that really made the movie that much more awesome (“Where are the stars??”). In the end, the awesome outweighed the dumb, but by barely.

* Next week I might vacation from the Greater Internet altogether, we’ll see.

* Incense is awesome, but never light it a few hours before you plan to sleep. You might as well have a cigar smoker blow ash into your lungs.

* Last week I could do one pull-up. Now I can do four. I’m getting back on track. I can also do about 70 push-ups, once, before blowing out my arms and any further weight training using them for the evening. I’m slowly building to 100. Also upped my weights on squats (front and back), bench press, and upright row.

* “Iron Yoga” is nothing more than doing plain normal yoga, while holding 5-12 pound weights in each hand. It’s also kinda badass.